Nerevar Reborn
by AEsob
Summary: He was the reincarnation of a Chimeri warlord. He was the subject of many prophecies. He was supposed to be the hero who freed the land from an ancient evil. But they wronged him. When heaven was taken from him, all he wanted was death. When he was denied death, he became the weapon of chaos, and defined entropy. He was the Nerevarine.
1. Prologue

"Prologue"

3E 427

* * *

"Do not believe madness to be a curse mortal, for some it is the greatest of blessings, of bitter mercy perhaps, but mercy nonetheless" – Sheogorath, the Madgod

* * *

I am a warlord.

No, not a warlord, I am THE Warlord. I am the reincarnation of the Chimeri warlord Lord Indoril Nerevar.

The first of the Ordinators rushed me head on, stupid fellow, thought he could win. I sidestepped, used his momentum against him.

He fell, face first. I drove my sword into his arse, and pulled upwards. The dark sword cut through his armour, his spine and his innards as if they were made of cotton.

Through the blistering heat and blinding ash, the imperial taller than a dunmer, one red eye and the other grey, a Mohawk on his head and a scarf hiding half of his face driving a sword through the elite warriors trained by House Indoril. That must have been a sight to behold. The ordinator's howls demoralised his companions. If they weren't already demoralised by the skinless body I was dragging through the fodaya.

They charged. They were supposed to be masters of tactic. It was said that what they could not achieve through the mace, they achieved through guile.

They had made the biggest, and the last mistakes of their lives. I cut the second one in half with a diagonal stroke. Shield, muscle, sinew, bone, bonemold...ebony made no difference. In this land of discrimination, the natives should learn something from the sharp edge of a long and straight ebony blade. As the Ordinator's guts spilled out, the one next to him diverted his attention from my sword to his dying friend.

I turned to the right and punched him in his helmet with my gauntleted left fist. The bonemold of his helmet was destroyed, along with his nose and his eyes. As he fell downwards from the force of my punch, I sensed another Ordinator trying to bring his Ebony mace down on my head from behind me. He had two distinct disadvantages. One, his armour slowed him down, and two, even if he did bring his mace down on me, he wouldn't be able to kill me.

Ah. It looks like I didn't explain. The point is that his ebony mace could definitely crush my head and spill all my brains all over this blasted wasteland. But that wouldn't do much. Sure, that would ruin my wonderfully soft and sublime blue robes, and since it has no buttons my light ebony armour would collect that brain fluid, the plates would smell and the leather underneath would be stained...and brain fluid gets very difficult to clean from under those ebony plates. If the blood trickles down, then my new breeches would be dirty as well.

My skull and brains would repair themselves within a minute, there's nothing anyone, including me, can do about it. Ever since Divayth Fyr made me swallow that yellowish liquid that smelled as if it was made of bones and rotten meat, I can't be killed. In retrospect, it was since I caught Corpus, but then my powers were limited to shambling, screaming and having digits drop off my body only to regenerate in a short while.

I can't die, they robbed me of the only solace I had in the world. Death. Like a warm, fulfilling sleep after a long day's work, it was supposed to come to me quick. Most didn't survive with their minds after a few weeks. I fought on for three months.

But then Yagrum Bagarn, that rutting spider-legged bloated freak who calls himself the last living dwarf, he said that after a thousand years, I'd have my mind back.

But Divayth never explained why I could regenerate; he had a theory that I'd caught a special strain of Corpus, prepared by my 'friend' under the mountain, just for me.

I got his note too. He called himself my 'respectful servant' and 'loyal friend'. Sometimes I think I should go to Red Mountain, it isn't as if he's going to kill me, anyway. Oh wait, he even made sure that he can't kill me.

But he made Corpus. Corpus killed my life, destroyed everything I had. For that, my 'respectful servant' and 'loyal friend' will pay.

Anyway, back to the Ordinators and the skinless corpse. Where was I? Let's recapitulate. I had just finished cutting one in half vertically when others charged me. I cut one diagonally and his spilling guts just missed my robes, then I punched another in the face, his bonemold collapsed under my ebony gauntlet, along with his skull and facial features...then another was just behind me.

I made a sweeping arc with my sword, intending to lop his head off. But since I had learnt this manoeuvre when I was shorter than the average Ordinator, meant that I grossly miscalculated the height his head would be at and simply sliced his hand off.

His gauntlet cracked, and he made such a shriek that even a Cliff Racer in heat would be envious. The gauntleted hand, still bleeding, flew over my head, miraculously spared my robes and fell over in the ash before me, still twitching.

The Ordinator, all heroism drained out of him, had dropped his shield and clutched the stump of his wasted arm. That injury was something no amount of magic could solve.

I turned and faced him.

Under the helmet that was a hideous caricature of my handsome face, I could see the fear in his eyes.

Before he could draw the dagger in his boot, I stabbed him through the hand, taking special care to sever all the nerves in it and pin it to the hot, dry and dusty ground. Bonemold and gold leaf could offer little resistance against ebony.

He tried to trip me with his feet. I jumped, drawing my knees up to my chest and firmly placing them on the ground in a moment.

The Ordinator was bewildered, he had never seen someone so tall pull that off.

"Look around you. Your friends are dead, I just sliced your hand off, and the healer is going to slice the other one off...if you survive, that is. You still want to be a hero?"

"You N'wah! Cursed fetcher! You have sealed your fate, you cannot escape the righteous!"

Ugh...Ordinators used to give me bad headaches...it was like they were assigned certain lines to speak and leave their brains outside the training camp.

I kneeled in the ash, gripped his helmet with my left hand, and channelled my hate into my fist, and through my fist, to the Ordinator...slowly subjecting him to the immense heat, burning him alive.

He screamed, over and over and over again. My nostrils were flooded with the glorious smell of melting, smouldering flesh. Dunmer have natural protection to flames, but touch spells of this magnitude are something not even an atronach can withstand.

How did I learn destruction magic? I don't know myself. But one day, I saw that I could melt a septim in my hand. In a few days, and with loads of practice on priests, Ordinators and zealots, I found that I could unleash a wide variety of immensely powerful flame spells, but never frost, not even shock. The fatigue and loss of energy experienced and documented by experienced mages was something I never experienced.

Since the Ordinators were dismembered and burnt alive, I decided to get back at the task at hand. The skinless corpse I was dragging had had some damage in the rough Ashlands. The face had started to bleed, and the eyeballs had already been smeared over the ashen floor.

I didn't matter to me though; I just had to drag the body from here to Ald'ruhn.

The sun was already enough to heat up my mostly shaved skull, especially since the somewhat spiky but ultimately low Mohawk offered little protection. My hair wasn't even close to the hideously long levels depicted by the Ordinator's masks. Like I said, they were nothing but a bad caricature. In time, I left my Mohawk as it was and instead kept on shaving both sides, although I had to trim a little whenever the hair reached past my shoulders.

The skinless, faceless body I had been dragging belonged to a very vicious, slave trading Dres councillor. This particular maggot in the maggot infested piece of rotting flesh that was Morrowind politics, had come to visit his dear friend Orvas Dren. From there, he visited Molag Mar.

I killed his contingent of poor excuses for bodyguards, cut the tendons in his knees and dragged him to some eggmine. Then, I flayed him alive, slowly. I let him savour the wonderful taste of pain; I had to be very careful not to destroy the skin, for it was art. And what was art if not shared with others?

Once it was finished, I wrapped him, skinless and screaming, in a Guar skin. Once I had finished attaching the skin to the signpost in Molag Mar, I came back and hauled him out to deposit him in Ald'ruhn. Dead or alive did not matter.

When I had started dragging him, he was still screaming.

Why was I doing this? Is there an answer? Very well, I will give you one

I did it because I could, just like THEY destroyed my life because they could. Just like the emperor took fancy on an orphan, had him arrested for crimes he never committed and threw him on a prison boat to a place where outsiders were less popular than the blight.

Just like they took away the only people who mattered to me. Just like they deprived me of the only solace I had left...they took away death from me.

They made me what I am. They had plotted, deliberated for thousands of years; they had even left guidelines for me.

 _AE GHARTOK PADHOME CHIM AE ALTADOON_

Very well then, I shall be the hand of chaos and define entropy. If heaven was denied to me, I shall reach heaven through violence.

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Please take the time to read and review.


	2. Harvest's Start

A/N: I dunno what people think about it, but personally I'm having a blast writing this. I research the lore so much that my head feels like split firewood, and then find ways to turn lore on itself. The Nerevarine is probably the most vicious character I've ever written. I should warn you though; this is not going to be a normal fic. And if this chapter is not up to the mark, then I am sorry, because I was not even sure that I'd be able to write this...a friend died.

Chapter 1

"Harvest's Start"

3E 427, 27th of Last Seed

* * *

MADGODGODMADLETTHESLEEPERDREAMLETTHEDREAMERSLEEPINDORILNEREVARLORDTHREEBELIEDYOUTHREEBETRAYEDYOUONEYOUBETRAYEDWASTHREETIMESTRUECLIMBREDMOUNTAINFORGEFRIENDSHIPANEWBREAKBONDSTHATBOGSDOWNTEARSKINTHATSTOPSASCENDENCEPURGETRUEN'WAHFROMRESADYNLONGFORGOTTENFRIENDBIDSYOUCOME

* * *

My dear 'friend' under the mountain was in my head again. Like every other night in that year, he was gnawing at the lies in my head, giving me the visions of truth.

I tried to stand, but I was not yet accustomed to my new muscles. Trying to see if my disease could withstand the lava of Molag Amur was a bad idea. It had taken three hours to get out of that pool, and sixteen days' worth of food to grow my legs back.

I drew the journal from my pack, and then checked the calendar for the lucky winner of the death by flaying lottery for that day. Once I actually saw the calendar, I felt like dancing with joy.

It was 27th of Last Seed. The day I'd eagerly been waiting for.

It was the day when every rutting bigot of Bal Ineth would be home. Every one of them would be inebriated to the point of no tomorrow. And they were right, for them, there would be no tomorrow

I have said before that art was to be shared, and for too long, I'd been sharing bland art, skins get so boring after some time.

No, it was time to burn down a town. The wonderful people of Bal Ineth appreciated fire, since they liked setting fire to people who were trying to escort their friend suffering from the 'divine disease'to the Corpusarium.

We were just passing through, only because there was no settlement in the vicinity, Leonus was filling up water skins and Pontius was buying food, she was trying to comfort me. I was in agony; they were whispering something in my head. Then I saw their eyes, full of hate, full of zeal. They rushed at us. Leonus was the first to stand before them; they killed him. I still remember it...they held him down, then hit him in the face over and over and over again, until his skull caved in and dark blood splattered. At first, I was a little horrified, but now I understand the beauty of the scene.

Pontius tried to stop them, but they killed him with sickles and maces, they pound his flesh like a baker in Cheydinhal pounds his dough. Pieces of his flesh were stripped and they flew here and there as his broken, blood drenched bones showed

Reliyna...her bow was far from reach, but still she tried. I could do nothing but gurgle and watch as she tried in vain to hold the mob off with a dagger while trying to drag me away.

It was futile anyway.

They nailed both of us the doorframes. She was bleeding; I could see that much, but the screaming in my ears increased. She was trying to say something to me, but I heard nothing.

The mob had surrounded us; they started to beat us with lit torches. Finally, one of them, who seemed the leader and quite knowledgeable about art, he held the torch to her face.

Reliyna was beautiful, I used to tell her that might have been a goddess and she used to laugh it off. I'll never hear her laughing again; never lose myself in her hair again. We used to dream that once it was all over, we would settle down on an isolated beach in High Rock, where there would only be me, her and the moons. She never got to see High Rock again.

Her hair was the first thing to catch fire, the smell is still seared into my memory. I watched, tried to rip my bloated arms from the wood, but they were weak, I could not do it. It was far later in my Corpus affliction, when I'd bloated into an unrecognisable mass that my curses properly manifested.

Her beautiful face slowly twisted, browned and then became shrivelled. She was unrecognisable…she had become art. She was still trying to say something, but the screaming in my ears increased, blocked everything else out.

They tried to do the same to me…I remember the intense heat slowly melting parts of my face, my eyes felt hot and dry, like the water in them had evaporated. The last thing I saw in a while was a bloated mass of flesh oddly resembling my nose drop to the floor. Then the smell that came slowly at first almost overwhelmed me.

After they had finished, they took the frame, dragged it somewhere and threw me to the hard, cold, stony floor. I felt the heat on my face lessen, and heard them drag something heavy to block the entrance. I stayed there for a long time, with nothing other than suffocation, the screaming in my ears the extreme pain in my joints and back and Reliyna's memories. Little by little, the air in that place lessened. Reliyna's voice left me, replaced by the thirty six lessons of the king of deceit.

I just waited for death to come. But she wouldn't. I was dragged on and on and on and on.

I learnt all his lessons, of deceit, of manipulation. All he spoke was neither true nor false, addressed directly to me. He whispered his lies in my ears as the screaming desperately tried to drown him out.

In the end, the whispers and the screaming stopped, and so did the pain. It was only Voryn urging me to climb the volcano.

For a long time I had stayed attached to the wooden frame, I suddenly found the strength to pull myself free. I do not know if my eyes had grown back by that time, because in that pitch black place (which I found to be a cave) I worked on pure instinct to clay my way out.

I dragged on, the pain I felt after each of my fingers routinely dropped and grew back slowly lessened, and after a while I felt nothing at all except the food my body demanded for regeneration. Voryn was urging me on, giving me strength, telling me to stand back up on my feet.

I did. The light was blinding at first, I still walked on for days on an end. I saw and heard less than I felt. I must have found my way to the Corpusarium, because the next thing I remember is someone  
(Divayth Fyr, as I found out later) pouring a vile liquid down my throat, like I said before, it tasted of bones and rotting meat. Then the screaming came back for an encore. And what an encore it was! There was screaming, wailing, moaning…on and on for a long time. Then all of them went away, Voryn became silent, although he did come back sometimes, in my sleep.

My body started hurting again, like someone was pulling all of it apart and rearranging it as they saw fit, again and again and again. The music to this pain was the continuous barrage of screaming. It was wonderful, the only music that I fully appreciate now, I used to like drums before, but now I think drum music to be disappointing. Except when the drums are made out of a still living persons innards and shin bones, which I remember trying once, but I'm afraid I'm more of an artist than I am a musician. Anyway, the next thing I distinctly remember is my skin, free from any sort of bloating or boils. My face was back, but the light was still blinding. After a week, that rutting pervert who should have left me for dead explained my unique curse.

He said it was a moment of immense biological importance, and how I was probably the only person who would live long enough to see Landfall. True…if I don't get bored till landfall comes, that is. The entire world needs to be paid in full for what they did to me. And I will turn them into something that even Malacath would be afraid to look at.

I had a little chat with Yagrum Bagarn too, that bloated sard called me Indoril Nerevar. I told him I'd carve his eyes out with his spider feet if he ever did again. He laughed, got me an old dwemer apparatus made of reflective glass. My face was longer, my features were sharper, years of toil and scarring were erased and one of my eyes had changed colour. I had grey eyes, now one of them had become red. Not like a Dunmer's globes of blood instead of eyes, but a dark shade of Red had replaced the grey of my right eye.

According to the last living freakshow on earth, that was what Nerevar looked like. Well, Nerevar had pale gold skin and pointy ears, but that was where the differences ended. But I hated it.

I tried to slash my eye out with a steel shard later on. Almost succeeded…until it grew back three hours later, and again, it was red instead of grey. I had slashed through my eyebrow, too, and it was quite deep. But it grew back.

I was frustrated at the lack of control I had over my own body, so I kept on cutting my eyebrow every time it healed, in the end, after fifty or so tries, I succeeded marginally, it left a very faint scar that could only be seen under certain kinds of light falling at precise angles. All that cutting and regenerating made me hungrier than I was earlier, and as I sat upstairs with some bread and cheese. That was when Pervert Fyr, pardon, Condescending Pervert Fyr...he was as condescending as he was a pervert...explained that my body needed food to regenerate. And if I slashed my arm off, then I'd have to go and fetch it, and then attach it, or I'd have to eat enough food so that my body go grow that part back.

Divayth tried to be nice (and did whenever he saw me again, although he wasn't fooling me) and let me have whatever I wanted from his collection. That was where I got my gear from. I never understood how it was in such good condition, because he kept all his treasures in over a thousand chests.

I thought it over, and decided that if they wanted me to be some long dead warlord, then I'd give them what they wanted. I couldn't turn my skin into pale gold and have pointy ears, but the Mohawk and the pierced ear I could do.

For thousands of years, bigots had been using my face to strike fear and uphold their oppressive laws, and I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine.

I left his tower about two months ago, on eighth of Sun's Height. The next time when everyone in Tamriel would be celebrating was twenty seventh of Last Seed, that was the day I paid Bal Ineth in full for their art.

Back to 27th of Last Seed, the day I'd waited for. I had it planned a long time ago. A simple Recall spell would get me to the village. Oh, the amount of control it had taken trying to set that Mark up. Waiting makes the reward so, so better.

The recall spell teleported me to outside the village. It was past sundown and their obnoxious revelling pierced my ears like a sharp, thin bolt out of a crossbow pierces the skull.

It may have been Harvest's End for them, but for me, the Harvest had just started.

I drew my scarf up and walked into the village. I had this planned a long time ago, I even had my lines memorised by heart (and even rehearsed with corpses). My first target was the tavern they call a cornerclub. Mostly because the insects that called themselves Dunmer spent almost all of their time drinking. In Cyrodil and Hammerfell people at least stop drinking after midnight, but no, in Vvardenfell, people stay in the taverns day in and day out.

I did have to do some work to set the building on fire, because it was made of stone. But large amounts of white hot flame conceived from pure hatred created a large amount of heat, and in the end, the Dunmer tried to scream, shout and break out of the doors, like Reliyna did, but just like her, they were cooked alive. Their screaming was the music I had desperately tried to create. Nay, the music they created for a short amount of time was even better than the screaming that rang in my ears for three months. One of them had finally kicked through the door, and dropped dead. That was when the smell of flesh cooked in alcohol overwhelmed all my senses. It was glorious, their skin was wonderfully caramelised, but the building could take no longer, and collapsed on them, trapping the cooked and half-cooked vermin under stone.

By that time, all of the good townsfolk who preferred their homes instead of the tavern had come out and surrounded me with axes and pitchforks; their anguish was the same as mine on that day. But their agony was going to be so satisfying. I recognised the principal artist amongst them, who had lead the procession that took away my Reliyna, I looked in his eyes, and saw fear, masked by hate and then I spoke. The short speech I had prepared for the occasion was horrible, yet to the point. I had drawn my sword and was ready to begin the last stage of my harvest.

"Good townsfolk of Bal Ineth! You will not recognise me today, and you never knew me, but on that day, you performed art with the only people who cared about me. You killed Leonus and Pontius that day for trying to protect their friends from a mob that knew nothing, and understood even less. You turned my Reliyna into art that day for trying to drag me away from a lynch mob. You religious bigots must have read the thirty-six lessons, yes? Then rejoice, for today, you shall witness Chim through chaos, for I intend to pay you back in full."

The speech was lousy, but it had done what I had intended, it had stupefied the mob. I do not know if they remembered what they had done, because I did not wait for an answer or a justification. I leapt into the fray swinging both sword and fire. Through them both, the lawless knew justice, and the righteous knew Chim.

It was beautiful, heads rolled, limbs flew and the dead spilled their innards all over the stone. The ones who were on fire writhed in agony and screamed, they rolled across the floor in vain trying to stop the pain. But they shouldn't have, for pain is beautiful. I was careful, not to kill the Artist, only to maim him and dispose him of his needless arms and legs.

They fought for their lives, and slashed at me, too. Some of them cut off fingers from my sword arm, only to have them regenerate in a moment. One crafty sard even lodged his axe in my neck. It distracted me for a moment while another tried to flank me. I was faster, and I caved his face in with my gauntlet. Then I killed the crafty one with her own axe. Her eyes rolled out of her skull when I cleaved it in two.

Their stamina was limited, but mine was not. By the time I was finished, over threescore corpses lined the streets. The Artist writhed and tried to move away in vain, he was in so much agony that his body had gone in shock, and he felt nothing. It was quite humourous, watching him trying to move away without arms and legs. It was like watching a snake trying to slither on a polished marble floor. I walked up to him, and I saw Reliyna's gem encrusted dagger in his belt.

He was afraid, for among all of the ones who were now dead, only he remembered properly. For true Artists do not forget their art. Even though he was quite amateurish, he had the spirit, and that meant he remembered. I took the dagger from his belt, and as he opened his mouth to scream, I tore his tongue out.

He was crying, so I cauterised his wounds with heat, and proceeded to stab his eyes out. I was having the time of my life! I had never been so happy, so excited in my life before that town. It was so satisfying that it set the levels of satisfaction to a new level.

Then I slowly cut open his stomach, and grabbed his fresh, bleeding and writhing intestines. I took them, and looped several folds of his slippery innards across his neck; he could do nothing but whimper. I had intended to choke him to death, but to my dismay, the soft entrails collapsed and were destroyed as the pressure built up.

I left him there, on the verge of death, bleeding out.

I did to him what he did to me. I had paid him back in full. So if the righteous cry for justice let them know that what I did was justified. 'Think of the children!' they said, I did a favour to the children of Bal Ineth and freed them from bigoted lynch mobs of parents who in turn would make bigoted lynch mobs out of them. They trapped me in time, all of them did, and if I exact vengeance, how is that not justified?

Hah. Justified. Justification is relative, just like every other feeling in this world.

Philosophy. How quaint!

Some people used to, and even now call me a terrorist, but they forget that the priests are the true terrorists, they terrorise you and make you pay tithes in the name of their god. They rape you and torture you and murder you in the name of their god. I did, and still do what I feel like, but at least I never claimed to have the divine on my side.

The divines are never on your side, you are mere playthings for their enjoyment. Just like a child discards his old stuffed toy after he gets a wooden sword to play with, the gods throw you away when they find someone new, someone more interesting to play with. And yet, you play the sycophant.

They discarded me, left me for dead; I clawed my way back to the top. So sard your 'Think of the children', and sard your 'may the divines have mercy on your soul' and sard your 'you monster' and sard your 'I feel sorry for your loss but you cannot go on living with this much hate in your heart'. Don't you get it? I do not need your outrage, your pity, your...your sorrow. I do not have patience for your crocodile tears. Once mother Nirn throws you into a dwemer cog that crushes your every bone and then heals all of those wounds, and then decides to pick you up and keep throwing you into that cog over and over and over again, all that remains is anger, once you wake up every morning from a nightmare and expect to wake up beside a redheaded goddess and when you wake up and find that your life is the same guarshite nightmare you dreamt about all that remains is madness. When you look for new ways to die every day, and hope that it kills you, all that remains is hatred.

So do not try to pity me.

My work for the day was done. Next up on my schedule was: drink five bottles of skooma and try to lull yourself to sleep and thinking about the glorious screaming. Maybe your diseased mind would be merciful and it would be Reliyna instead of Voryn who whispered in your ear all night.

What was I expecting, minds aren't merciful. At least, my mind isn't.


	3. Madgod

1E 700/2E 282/2E 882/3E 427

DAGOTH VORYN/DAGOTH UR

SHARMAT/FRIEND/LORD HIGH COUNCILLOR/BETRAYED

"MADGOD"

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986

Lord Voryn Dagoth! Dagoth Ur! Come and bathe in the radiance of the heart's glow!

Twisted heart foul heart beautiful heart sublime heart

Dissonant pain painful dissonance cognitive dissonance clarifying unclarity

What pain is fouler? To be struck down by a trusted friend while doing his bidding or the pain when your trusted friend's followers strike down your family?

Oppression Repression Suppression Assassination Pillage Rape Massacre

The pain I feel or the pain the ones I loved felt?

Cursed Chimer Damned Gods Criminal Tribunal

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Criminal Tribunal indeed! When the ones that pass their judgement on the entire Mundus are corrupt themselves then how can they punish the 'wicked' for their crimes?

THE HEART KNOWS! THE HEART SHOWS! THE HEART SPEAKS! THE HEART OF THE VOIDWRAITH!

You can hear the heart speak if you listen close, you can try to match the frequency, too! But the poor, poor fools! They do not know how they can; they beat the bells and drive the drums...ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum!

No! You have to sunder the godhood of the Voidwraith, flay its immortality!

Then the heart sings!

Sonorous melodious tunes!

But what is the speed of the heart's voice, and what is its frequency? What of its amplitude? What of its wavelength!

Golden wavelength! Crests and troughs! Small nubs of flesh on top!

Did the tonal architect ever take the soft golden flesh in his hand?

You do not know the tonal architect?

Do you not understand the importance of what we are doing here? You ignoramus!

Worry not because Dagoth will explain all there is to it!

Long before the dirty race of man undermined all of Tamriel under his rotting toenail, there lived a mer with a dream!

A mer who united mortal enemies into blood friends. A mer who bound a sundered, bleeding nation under a strong, firm leadership. My long forgotten friend.

The tonal architect was the first mer to witness Voidwraith's glory. Oh, if only we had seen his wisdom at the time. If only we had urged him away from war...

Voryn cries for the loss, house dagoth cries for the loss. Forgive us, friend, for not knowing the glory of the heart. To not feel its pulsating reverberations that whispered sweet promises.

We were all hounds of war. We claimed false righteousness, but in the end, we wanted the taste of blood on our lips, the euphoria of witnessing a mer trying in vain to hold in his innards.

War is beautiful! War is fragrant! War is sublime! War is godly! Akulakhan is god!

Did I say Akulakhan? Shh...stupid Voryn.

Idiot Voryn Witless Voryn Doltish Voryn Ignoramus Voryn Obtuse Voryn

We shall not reveal to him the secret of Akulakhan! We shall merely give him a glimpse of glory.

He has to climb the red-tower, and we have to apologise to him!

No! _He_ has to apologise.

But what happened was not his fault!

Do not eat the sins of a warlord! Do not trust him! Did he not strike you down, lord voryn? This time he shall not do so for we are adamantine!

Dagoth Ur Dagoth Voryn Dagoth Adamantine Dagoth Voryn Voryn Ur Dagoth Adamantine

They are the enemy!

As you ran around this chamber four thousand years ago doing what he had told you to do they struck you down.

He struck you down.

Do you not remember the bitter cruel blade of betrayal that cut us down?

But did he not witness the same pain we did?

No! He did not! And it was not your doing!

You are weak Voryn, to not exact your vengeance on our enemies!

He is not our enemy!

Yes he is!

AYEM IS ENEMY VEHK IS ENEMY SEHT IS ENEMY NEREVAR IS ENEMY

NEREVAR IS FRIEND.

NEREVAR IS ENEMY NEREVAR IS FRIEND NEREVAR IS ENEMY NEREVAR IS FRIEND.

NEREVAR IS ENEMYFRIEND.

NEREVAR IS END.

NEREVAR IS END?

No! That cannot be!

Why would it be? Our oath was written in blood, we were to destroy the tools were we not? We were to keep them till we destroyed them...and we kept our promise and Nerevar betrayed us.

What is the taste of betrayal? Is it the metallic blood or is it the memories of the breath of a love you know you will never know again. What does betrayal look like? Is it the sharp ebony of a dagger or is it the face of the person you least expected would betray you?

Why Nerevar? Why?

Why did you betray me Nerevar, when i only stood waiting for you to ask me to destroy the tools? What did you gain Nerevar, by destroying all i stood for, by destroying my family?

Did you not see through the Guttersnipe's lies, the Mage's false wisdom and the Snake-bitch's brainwashing?

Where did it get you my friend? Where?

What is the true disease? Is it the glory-of-flesh that attunes one to the heart's wisdom, or the ashen akin and the red ears and the grated voice and the changed identity of our very race? What is the true blight? The storm of calling that carries our voices to all listening, or the three usurpers who brainwashed then murdered their king and whored his country out to the highest bidder.

Nerevar will pay. Nerevar has paid. Nerevar will pay. Nerevar has paid. Nerevar will pay. Nerevar has paid.

He shall climb Red mountain once again, alone this time, and see for himself what he has wrought.

He will eat his own sins, and we will forgive him, accept him back with open arms and once again, side by side, we will free Resadyn from the northern oppressors. We will create the Chimer anew, and they will teach the love of the Voidwraith's heart! My heart!

Corprus will be our legacy, brother.

AE HERMA MORA ALTADOON PADHOME SITHISIT AE LKHAN AE AI

The beginning of the words is SHARMAT.

* * *

A/N: Apologies for taking so long and producing such a short chapter. I am in the hospital with broken ribs and two dislocated fingers, and I wrote half of this with eight fingers and by the time I was able to use the other to, the evil doctors increased my pain medication and put me to sleep early. Although I believe you will like what you see.


	4. Hostile Takeover

" _Marcus?"_

 _I open an eye and look at the red-haired goddess resting her head on my chest._ I couldn't believe my luck right then, I was so...happy. That word feels so distant right now.

 _She looks at me, suddenly very serious, almost melancholy. "When will the killing end? I don't like doing this, y'know, so many people who just...fight to feed someone, at home, I..."_

" _Soon, Reliyna, and all of this will be far away when that day comes."_

I lied to her, but I wanted to believe that. That day will never come. Not for me, never again.

* * *

3E 427, 2 Frostfall

"Hostile Takeover"

Dren Plantation, Ascadian Isles region, Vvardenfell open province, Morrowind

* * *

It was night-time.

Night-time meant funtime.

Dren had stupid guards, though.

Five patrolling, three on the roofs and three near the slave pens, probably four more in the guard quarters.

I spotted one taking a piss, quite far away from the rest of his friends.

I caught that idiot from behind, clamped my right hand on his mouth and forced his ear to his left shoulder and pushed his chin inwards, it started hurting really fast. I drew back my armoured left fist and smashed into the back of his skull, breaking his spine and sending shards of bone into his brain.

He went limp, twitching. I dropped him.

I was dressed in a rough black shirt and pants I had bought from a shop. My leather boots were inconspicuous. The leather and ebony plate armour, I wore below the shirt...although it was a little uncomfortable at first, I adjusted to the feeling in a while.

Right, an explanation first, let's get that out of our way.

Orvas Dren, the owner and sole proprietor of Camonna Tong, a gang of ruthless criminals who traded in skooma, murder and traded slaves, both native and outlander.

But how can one person own a gang? Well, it wasn't a gang, it was a properly registered and licensed Slave trading business owned by Orvas Dren. And it ran like that, too. Everything that belonged to the Tong was owned by Orvas Dren. His second in command and favourite lackeys were entitled to the business through his will.

The way I saw it, the Tong's days were over. And I was its end.

My immediate targets were the goons on the roof, and since I had nothing but two daggers and an ebony sword I doubted I could get them out of my way with ease.

That was annoying.

Two years of relying on Reliyna for taking out far off targets, Leonus for thinning the ranks and Pontius to smash anyone else that got close meant that I stopped thinking about those things altogether.

That was a weakness.

My temper flared up.

Then I started laughing, I had actually forgotten for a moment that whatever i did, they could never kill me.

I drew my sword, and stuck to the shadows and snuck towards my first target for the night, the guard quarters.

Under Masser and Secunda, with the light cool breeze the saltrice waved around me. The shrieks of a Khaljit pierced my ears. The crack of a whip and the drunken laughter got even closer as I approached the quarters.

My sword gleamed with excitement and the twin glory of the moons. One more minute, I told it, and then we both would have enough blood to satisfy us for the night.

I was waiting, to turn their sadistic laughter into screams for mercy.

As I kicked the door down, I cut diagonally into the flash of netch armour I saw.

With a melodious scream he died. His ribs, lungs, spine and heart were cut in half by my stroke. Ragged, torn flesh, remains of burst nerves and some whitish body fluid flowing out. The whole room suddenly was overwhelmed by the smell of guts.

The rest stared at me. Even the bawling, mutilated slave tied to the floor was quiet.

But I was at a distinct disadvantage.

Due to my height and old habits learned when the elves were shorter than I was, I had drawn my sword up at such an angle that it was now stuck in the roof.

Blood and guts trickled down the blade. If I was going to draw the sword out of where it was, now was probably a bad time.

So I decided to sard the ebony and stick to steel.

I unsheathed the two of my daggers.

The idiots, drunk as they were, pounced on me.

I stabbed the first in her unprotected neck, then sidestepped and using the almost dead body at the end of my blade to stabilise myself, kicked another of those sards in the chest.

As he reeled from the impact of my blow I noticed another trying to bring down a mace on my unprotected arm.

Instinctively I blocked the blow with my gauntleted left arm, but the impact shattered a bone, which I ignored as it would heal in half a moment. I pulled my knife free from the corpse and stabbed the one I had kicked in the chest through the eyes. Oh, how he howled with two blades in his head!

By then my arm had healed, so I decided to have my personal bludgeoning instrument meet the maceman's face. In short, I put all my weight into my arm and smashed into his head.

As his head was obliterated, his body dropped on the wooden floor with a squelch.

Now everyone except the screaming cat on the floor was dead.

Like I said, he was screaming, a lot. And now that I had noticed it, I saw that he was missing a few organs, like his forearms and genitals. He was bleeding to death, slowly, ignominiously.

He was weak. He was miserable. He reminded me of myself.

So I put him to rest, permanently. That was what I would have wanted if someone could give that to me.

Now, it was Dren's turn.

Very helpfully, there was a set of ten weighted throwing knives in that room.

I clasped that onto my belt and retrieved my daggers from the dead guards head. Pulling the sword out of the roof was a little difficult, but I did it, eventually.

I had considered going out the door and walking into the moonlight. Sword raised above my head, the elves cowering in fear before the eternal all consuming fire burnt them to cinders.

But that way, Dren might bolt...he might teleport to some safe place hidden far away from me.

So I took the scenic route.

An underground tunnel from the Guard rooms led to the Manor's cellar. It is easy to transport Skooma this way, because the temple or the Emperor's guards don't look in the guard quarters.

Heh. Empire...did nothing but tax.

From Colovia to Vvardenfell, the only thing the Empire does properly is tax the shite out of people. That and let the East Imperial Trading company ruin Cyrodillic peasants and producers. That and kidnap people off the streets, frame them for crimes they did not commit and put them on a sarding prison boat and ship them to an island where the natives might as well burn your face off than talk to you and then establish a sarding quarantine on the island.

The way I saw it, I was going to go after the Emperor next. Introduce his eyeballs to my fingers.

It was in pitch-black darkness that I found my way to the Manor's cellar.

It was in pitch-black darkness that I found my eyes.

There was a trap door at the end of the tunnel.

Before the others even knew what was going on, I had stabbed one guard through, and then I pulled my sword up, and cut him in half. The second charged me, and I swiped at the air in front of him. His face was drenched by innards, shite, bile and brains. He was disoriented, as I cut the tendons of his knees and as he was on his knees I cut his head off.

Cutting a head off is a wonderful experience. An experience that cannot be described so easily. So I won't.

I picked the head up, rubbed off all the blood, and then I was off to Dren's room.

House wasn't really protected, because Dren was paranoid about attempts on his life, and so all the guards were in his room. Funny, how they won't be able to do much to save him, anyway.

The funny thing was, there were no sex slaves in his house.

So that needs an explanation. Dren's Tong had been at it for years. Cyrodillic, Altmer, Bosmer and Breton women, and sometimes men, were picked up on Vvardenfell to use for Dren's lavish underground sex slave parties.

I was in Molag Mar, assassinating some Redoran/Camonna Tong arsehole slave-owner, when I had found an invitation on him. An invite for a party at the Dren Estate, where the 'freshest Outlander meat' was to change hands.

And this was legal. It was a fully legal business venture, because Tong was a legal slave-trading business.

Morrowind laws, oh joy!

I had to climb a lot of stairs to reach the room.

Dren's door was made of rich, imported teak, and I didn't want to kick it down, so I knocked furiously.

The door opened, and I cut the sard that had opened the door in half.

I threw the head I was carrying at a group of guards, who caught it,, dumbfounded, and then I threw throwing knives at them.

I confess, my aim was off, and only two of the knives hit their intended targets, the other two guards tried to flank me.

And then there was Dren. It was well past midnight, and still he was armed to the teeth.

It did not make much difference, though. A simple fireball took care of the man who was trying to approach me from the left, and as I set his face on fire, I lunged sideways aiming my sword at the other's face.

In situations like this, you duck, but the guard wanted to be a hero and tried to parry the blow. It didn't work; instead, my sword broke his sword, and then just grazed his ear and hit the wall. But the shards from his broken sword punctured his head.

Then I sensed footsteps behind me, and sidestepped just in time to miss a blow from an Ebony spear.

Dren was taught by Redoran warriors, deadly moves, sidesteps, lunges and flourishes, but too stamina consuming for prolonged fights.

He cursed al lot too. His mouth, when open seemed like a sewer.

I waited and sidestepped and parried till his blows with the heavy halberd slowed down, and then when he clumsily tried in vain to slice me in half again, I sidestepped yet again, but this time I planted a firm foot on the halberd, and then before he could lift it, I elbowed his face. His nose was broken, and he removed his hold on his weapon, which was a mistake. I punched him with my right hand repeatedly till my fingers broke and repaired themselves, and then threw him into his desk.

Before he could get up, I drove a dagger into his left hand, and thus trapped it on the desk.

He screamed, and screamed, and cursed my ancestors, and promptly went back to screaming.

Then I retrieved a neatly folded piece of paper from my pocket. It was an unsigned will.

According to that foolproof document, prepared for a hundred and fifty gold by supposedly the best lawyer in Caldera, the person who signed and dated that will would hand over all his money and property to one 'Marcus of Cheydinhal.'

I held that paper out to Dren, and simply said "Sign it."

Dren was bewildered.

"Sign it or I'll tear your ballocks off and make you eat them."

The threat didn't seem to work, so I punched his broken nose yet again and unlaced his trousers.

When my armoured, ridged, sharp and cold left hand was on his ballocks, then he understood.

I tugged at them, slightly; the sharp ebony must have pierced his thin, blue skin because I drew blood.

Dren had a small prick, though.

Once he had signed it, I knew that my job was almost done.

And it needs clarification. By Morrowind laws, when you are the recipient of a property will, or a business partner, or even are a member of a guild other than a great house, you are entitled to promotion the old way. And the best part? The law doesn't come after you, because this way is completely legal.

That is, promotion by killing your superior, and going home free.

By signing his will and dating it, all his previous wills, if he had any, were deemed null and void.

And so, I retrieved the bloodless, stainless piece of paper, folded it, and put it back in my pocket.

Dren must have understood what was coming, because in the eyes of the man supposed to be the most dangerous man in Vvardenfell, I saw defeat.

So I removed the dagger from his ruined hand, put it in his hands, folded his fingers around it, and despite his futile attempts to break free, I stabbed him, no, he stabbed himself in prick.

Then I used Reliyna's dagger to slice his throat.

Morrowind was a playground where the strong preyed on the weak, and since I was so determined to give them a taste of their own medicine, I could use that money and Dren's business logbook to pick targets.

I now had unlimited resources, millions of gold, and a logbook full of names to go after. Just needed a way to die once and for all and then it would all end.

If it could end, that is.

But before that, I had a few hundred dirty elves to kill.

* * *

A/N: And another chapter is up. I got home yesterday and finished this in four hours. Read and please leave a review, it helps me a lot.


	5. Aftermath

3E 427, 6 Frostfall

"Aftermath"

Dren Plantation, now owned by Marcus of Cheydinhal, Ascadian Isles region, Vvardenfell open province, Morrowind

* * *

It was 6th of Frostfall, Reliyna's birthday.

We had planned so much. Leonus and Pontius would cook; I'd make her a necklace out of the pearls we had collected on our journeys. That for one day, we would be able to afford a Breton restaurant in Caldera. We'd dress up proper for that day. No steel, just finery. They didn't let everyone in there, especially the ones who looked like they had waded through the corpses of hundred men.

It was funny. I had made so much money in six months that I could afford to buy the entire town of Caldera and still claim that I had a bargain. No, I could go back to Cyrodiil and buy half of it, and still have enough money to make a house out of, and live there swimming in gold till the end of days. Back then we'd eat nothing but bread and stew for a few days if we went and bought new gear.

We were all born guttersnipes, except for Reliyna. No, she was the daughter of some High Rock nobleman, she ran when she was sixteen. We were used to rough living, but Reliyna, even after five years on the road; she never forgot her childhood of luxury. we'd sleep under the open sky, and we'd haggle for contract money. We tried to make our own fate with swords, we used to dream big, and none of those dreams ever came true.

That was why I'd agreed to work for an Imperial Spymaster who didn't care what happened to us. For the promise of a better future, where, where Pontius would finally open up a bakery and hang the greatsword on the wall, and Leonus would finally finish his destruction magic courses...and I'd buy Reliyna a cottage on a High Rock beach, and we'd be able to buy more books than we could read. But Cosades' jobs started getting more and more dangerous, and unconventional.

It was just 'dig through this' or 'find that' at first, then he started issuing assassination orders, and by Oblivion did Reliyna hate those. We worked on monthly contracts, by not taking a job we'd break the contract, Cosades, that sard, he used to keep assassinations in the middle of the month, when it was too late to get other payment, and if we broke the contract prematurely, we'd miss out on half the pay.

Reliyna was our archer, and she would be the one to actually kill the target from a safe distance. She didn't talk to me for an hour after that, and when she would talk, it would be all snark and sarcasm.

I missed her snarking too.

In the end, Caius sent us to some cultist cave without telling us that hordes of degenerates would attack us on sight; that an incurable disease lurked within.

It was the last contract for the month, and if we cleared that 'smuggler' cave, we'd have a hefty bonus to spend. So we agreed.

He was on my list too, just had to plan a way to clean him out without attracting attention. He'd like it, yes, because he always asked for discreteness.

Right, we got that out of our way.

On the sixth of Frostfall, I'd busied myself with making a list out of Dren's business ledger. He had been at it for over eighty years, so I had over seventy ledgers to dig through.

The first sixty or so were simple enough, but after the province opened up his business boomed. I wondered why, wondering was an old habit, didn't burn with the rest of my old body. Then I convinced myself that I had to stop wondering because it didn't really matter, because all of the people on those ledgers would die anyway.

Dren's treasury, built underground, was larger than Cheydinhal's jail, and from what I saw in the ledgers, it was positively overflowing. Dren was a sarding miser. Over a period of eighty years of running the Tong business, he'd made over six million gold coins, eight hundred and fifty thousand silver coins, fifteen chests of gems, ten sacks of jewellery and a full set of Daedric armour that he was not even allowed to wear.

Temple had forbidden the usage of Daedric armour for private combat purposes, and the various Daedric helmets were only allowed if you fulfilled a certain criteria...like work for the Temple, or donate everything other than your dirty underwear to the Temple, or be a rabid, overzealous outlander hating, enslaving sard ballocks deep in the blood and guts of your victims...in which case I'm not sure why Dren didn't qualify.

But the saddest part was that I did not have the permission to open the treasury yet.

No, the Ordinators would be at my new estate and they would have me sign a few forms and make a copy of the new ownership papers, and comment on my appearance and tell me how they wanted to bury me under this very island...in which case I'd tell them that the feeling was mutual...and then they would start a fight on my property and I'd eviscerate them and hang their corpses up at the front gate, which was completely, absolutely legal per Morrowind property laws, Section 74.

But they were supposed to arrive a little later than I'd have liked, but that gave me enough time to clean my dirty, blood and guts drenched, smelly armour and the equally smelly but also sticky gauntlet.

Cleaning the gauntlet and the ebony plates on my armour were easy, but gunk was stuck behind some of the plates, and the exposed leather needed to be polished with soap-water and a dry cloth. I'd have liked lemon juice, but lemon did not grow on that blasted, ash covered island.

In fact, I am not sure if any vegetables grew on this island. No spinach, no leeks, no coriander and no tomatoes. We used to have a hard time eating all that meat, meat and even more meat. We had to eat things we never even considered was food, like rats, and nix-hounds, and other random insects.

Yes, some Dunmer might argue that you had Ash Yams, but that was it!

Ash Yams, unless overcooked to a point where they would be nothing but mush, and then hidden under a plethora of spices tasted like you walked a few miles through the Ashlands with your mouth gaping open.

We would get sick without vegetables, and sick meant we would not be able to fight.

The only vegetables we ate were the half-fresh half-frozen legion surplus ones that we had to buy at thrice the normal price.

These same vegetables had been requisitioned from the Cyrodiil peasant by the Empire.

At that point it was not entirely clear if we were the ones ruling all of Tamriel or if Morrowind and Argonia and Summerset Isles ruled us.

For every legion outpost built on the frontier, the imperial peasant suffered. For every war the empire won, the people paid the price, first in conscripted family members and later in the increase of taxes. If you couldn't pay, too bad, your house and your land now belonged to the Emperor. If you stood up against the taxes, you were now a traitor, and you would be dragged to the gallows, and beaten and raped and publically executed.

The clergy was no less. If you could not pay your 'dues' to the Temple of the Divines, they would requisition your property for the 'propagation of faith'. If you refused to, then the vigil would pay you a visit to destroy your home, kill your spouse and sard your family.

When villages full of peasants died one after the other, the clergy sat on huge piles of requisitioned grains and vegetables.

Long live the empire my arse.

So as I was cleaning the armour I noticed some gashes and wearing down at multiple places. At this rate, the armour won't hold together after a few more battles.

I needed a good smith who knew how to work with ebony.

The mansion was unguarded because after I had slit Dren's throat, I had gone on a merry ride and murdered all the guards on the estate.

That was why the mansion was left unguarded, and I'd have to take rounds all night to make sure that my property was alright.

Dren's retinue of servants was really unhelpful and unresponsive, and I'd tried to get rid of them, but they'd not leave unless I had settled their dues. But still, none of them would even consider helping the poor outlander secure the mansion.

My head had grown some light stubble, and my short Mohawk was almost long. I had grown a beard too, but I had time earlier to cut it a little short so I looked a little more like I did in the past.

I had also put on a little more weight, and was no longer built of only lean muscles. No, there was a little fat near my abdomen. But this fat was food for my regenerative abilities. If I got injured in a fight, then my body would use this fat to heal my wounds rather than weaken my muscles.

My sword was getting a little dull ever since I had pulled it out of the roof in the guardroom, so it needed sharpening after I was finished repairing my broken armour. I wished my armour could heal with my wounds.

And that was when I heard footsteps on the porch of the mansion.

Ilmeni Dren

3E 427, 6 Frostfall

Outside Marcus of Cheydinhal's mansion

* * *

I adjusted my hair for the sixth time that day.

I had been wearing an old blue silk dress that I had not worn for about a decade. But at least it was a well preserved dress.

The Imperial style boots were quite uncomfortable as well.

The dagger strapped to my thigh pricked, and drew blood. It was not something I was used to.

I often wondered that what I was doing with my life, at twenty six years of age, when other girls my age were busy flirting with mer twice as old as they were. To be fair I tried it once, but the Bouyant Armgirer I was with had my glove stolen from his bedroom and kept getting blackmails till we broke it off.

On days other than 6th of Frostfall, 3E 427, the answer would be that I was organising a group of people who helped escaped slaves escape back to their homeland, and not caught by my uncle, who was the richest slaver on the whole Continent.

And on 6th of Frostfall, 3E 427, the answer was that I was dressed in the best clothes I had here at my uncle's mansion, which now belonged to his murderer, and I was here to ask the person who murdered my uncle for help.

Orvas Dren was my uncle.

Twenty years ago, he was my life.

I still remembered my Orvy uncle, who used to get me the best of gifts, tell me the funniest of stories, teach me painting and take me places on his shoulders.

I also remembered the ruthless slaver Orvas Dren who beat a Khaljit to death for the crime of helping his pregnant mate run away.

As I loved Orvy uncle who used to teach me new and even more ridiculous tricks to get on my father's nerves, I hated Orvas Dren who said he would have killed me a long time ago and let his men sard every person even remotely associated to me for helping his slaves escape if I wasn't his niece.

So as one part of me wanted to stab the outlander who had killed uncle Orvy to death, another part of me wanted to thank him for removing the greatest obstacle for abolitionist movements in the country.

But all of me wanted to slap him for staying in that mansion.

I took in a deep breath and decided to knock.

Before I could knock, the door opened and I found myself facing the most frightening human possible.

His face was pale, devoid of colour. His eyes were startling, one was a soul piercing grey and the other was blood red, even more so than that of a Dunmer, and his gaze was of a predator.

He had a sharp nose and an expressionless mouth. The lack of creases beside it seemed to indicate that he did not smile. He could be called handsome if ever smiled in his life and if he didn't look at others like he wanted to kill them.

His skin was spotless, and he exceptionally so for someone who had reportedly killed my uncle's bodyguards single handed. He had a noticeably strong jawline, hidden by his full beard, cut short, and his hair was a short Mohawk not unlike Velothi warriors.

He was very tall, almost taller than an Altmer, and it made him even more intimidating than his face alone was.

He wore an unbuttoned robe made of black silk which looked very new, with tan coloured trousers underneath with boots that ended and inch below his knee.

I had been thinking and thinking and thinking about the things I was going to say to him, and how I was going to persuade him to help me.

The problem was that with my uncle out of the calculation, House Telvaani was without bodies for experimentation, and the only thing a Telvaani mage wants more than power is more bodies to experiment upon.

There was a rebellion in the Abebaal Egg Mine, and fearing that this would lead to them losing even more slaves, the Telvaani had decided to begin a massive crackdown, and according to my contact in House Telvaani, hired a band of mercenaries known for their ruthlessness.

We didn't have enough resources to head that band off, or to convince them not to attack the slaves. We would need money for that, and this outlander who owned all my uncle's money could surely donate a few hundred coins for the cause, especially if the rumours were true and he was a very dangerous abolitionist.

He definitely looked like an abolitionist, though.

So I explained to him my purpose, tried to appeal to his charity, to his goodwill, I even put in sentimentality and tried to evoke his guilt for killing my uncle.

None of it worked.

It was like talking to a Vivec City canton. A huge wall that listened and absorbed but never replied back.

He listened to all I had to say, and looked me straight in the eye in the scariest way imaginable, and as if it wasn't enough, he clearly, very succinctly spoke four words in a deep and heavy voice that sent shivers down my spine.

"Get off my property."

And then he closed that door in my face.

There was nothing else I could do. My father hadn't talked to me in years, nobody in house Hlaalu would help me out. It was suicidal to ask the Redoran, the Telvaani or the Temple. Jobasha had already emptied out his savings for the cause.

We were just short on money.

So there was no other way. I had to send one of our own into harm's way, to do the job I failed to.

* * *

 **Thank you countess z, JM38LACK, J. Applegate, Leitis, Maharvika, Vanillathunder215 for talking to a sick, crazy man.**

 **A shout-out to Countess Z's story Accidental Disciples, which, if you haven't read it yet, which is highly unlikely, you should go and read it.**

 **Another shout-out to Vanillathunder215's story Rising from the Ashes, which, if you haven't read it yet, which again, is highly unlikely, you should go and read it.**

 **Thank you again, JM38LACK, for your deep insight on the various subjects pertaining to lore that I have pestered you about. Don't worry; I plan to use all of that in a few chapters.**

 **Special Thanks to Countess Z and Vanillathunder215 for all the help with life and my story.**

 **Take your time to review.**


	6. Bloodbath

10 Frostfall, 3E 427

Somewhere in the Azura's Coast region, Vvardenfell province, Morrowind

Marcus of Cheydinhal

* * *

In 425, when I had first come to the island, I was told to never pick fights with a Telvaani.

The Telvaani were mages. In everything they did, they incorporated magic.

So, if you faced, say, an archer, you'd expect them to shoot arrows at you, maybe bolts, but the Telvaani...they would shoot at you with enchanted arrows, or conjured throwing knives. They were untraceable assassins.

A Telvaani Enforcer was a battlemage. They summoned Daedra, used destruction magic, illusions, alterations and the like.

Against a Telvaani battlemage there'd be no fight. It would be over before it even began.

The Telvaani were also the most xenophobic and racist. They kept slaves, experimented on them, sarded them and used their corpses for alchemy. They kidnapped foreigners who'd end up on their territory.

So I had been practically itching to get to them.

It had been too long since I had last practised my art, too long.

I longed to tear their beating hearts out of their screaming bodies, to pull out their brains out of their eyes...to feed them their own entrails.

Oh, how I missed the thrill.

My armour was in bad shape, my sword was barely sharpened, and the leather straps around the hilt were coming off.

But it didn't matter.

None of it mattered. The number of enforcers, their armaments, risks, their fallback options...in another life I used to practically swallow these details, now, they were just words that didn't change anything.

I knew the land more than the Velothi themselves. The Velothi...the so-called noble guardians of the ancient faith. On Vvardenfell island, travellers from all around the world would visit them, to see their wise-women, to write glowing reports in books about them.

They were called the true dunmeri, the ones who did not believe in the lies of the triune.

The reality was, that they were the most bigoted, backdated, narrow-minded, sexist outlander haters that the island ever bred.

They warred for cattle and land, treated women like objects, like trophies, the spoils of war.

Of all the foreigners who would visit them, most would disappear.

Some would be sold to slavers for ransom, and some of those sards who had developed a taste for outlander flesh, called Érabenimsun tribe, would keep them as slaves.

They represented the true Velothi, they did. In all of their glorious Velothi traditions they wished to uphold the true worship of the land and the sarding of the outlanders.

Let us recapitulate, there were xenophobic slavers to kill.

In three days I had tracked my quarry. They were slow, weaklings.

They were overconfident, didn't check for threats.

They sang and drank, left tracks, slept nights.

I didn't.

In one day I had walked through the lush Ascadian Isles and into the rocky Azura's Coast. Once I caught up to them, I overtook them, and set up an ambush near a ridge.

I always enjoyed seeing the look in their faces as I cut them down. It was more fun that way.

I waited for them, and as I waited, my hunger grew. It was better that way, for when you are hungry, it is far more satisfying to destroy the weak.

And since they were slow, my hunger grew to the point of utter impatience, of a slow, burning rage.

Although they were slow, they came.

They were led by a heavyset female, behind her, ten men and women.

What a disappointment. I had come expecting a contingent. Maybe a hundred people. That would be a true bloodbath.

But no one could ever accuse me of being unappreciative of a gift, so I decided to make it special.

They were singing.

I wouldn't call it singing, for it was a crass cacophony of Dunmeri words. But they would sing, surely, they would, for what song is sweeter than the screams that beg for death?

In a flash I was standing in front of them, my sword unsheathed. Without a word, I pushed their leader into the ground, and then stabbed her in the face.

They sprang into action, already demoralised, leaderless.

The first one of them had raised her shortsword, her left hand channelling her magicka into a shock spell. I stabbed her in the shoulder, and with a little effort, sliced through her leather armour, her skin and her internal organs.

With shock on her face, her body cut in half and with a sweet scream on her lips she fell; the magicka she had stored in her palm became unstable and exploded in a beautiful red mist of bone fragments.

There was nothing that remained of her hands other than a few nubs of white bone surrounded by slightly charred pink flesh.

One of those electrified bone fragments flew and embedded itself in the eye of a brutish bonemold clad spearman, and I decided to save him for the last, so I punched him in the stomach and called forth flames to set fire to his hands.

I spun to meet the third, whose face I smashed in as my gauntleted fist hit it with full force.

The fourth and the fifth, young women, attacked at the same time. And as I deflected their blows, the sixth jumped and stabbed me in the neck.

Blood erupted from the wound, drenching his face and my clothes with the crimson tide, with a red mist all around my face.

That annoyed me to no end. I hated when someone ruined my clothes.

I reeled from the impact, and they believed that the battle was over.

Then with astonished faces they noticed how I nonchalantly pulled the dagger out of my throat, and how the wound closed automatically.

I unleashed a gout of flame at the fifth, threw the knife into its owner's head and beheaded the fourth.

As she danced around, consumed by the flames and was reduced to ashes, I faced the remaining four.

One with an axe in one hand and a spell prepared in the other, two identical women with daggers and another spearman.

The axeman leapt at me, the daggers kept their distance as they prepared shock and frost spells and the spearman thrust at my feet.

I understood what they wanted to do. The spearman would hit me in the feet, I would reel from the pain and bend down, and the axeman would lop my head off. The daggers would use frost to freeze my body and the shock spell would break it into a million pieces.

Their theory was sound. Their efforts were commendable. What they didn't take into account however, was my speed and reflexes.

As the spearman thrust at me I jumped and planted a foot on the blade of his spear, effectively trapping him and bringing him forward, the axeman had already leapt. As he fell forward, trying in vain to balance himself but never letting go of his spear I grabbed the front of his armour and used him as a shield against the axeman.

The axe hit the back of spearman's head with a soft thwack. Blood and brain matter exploded on to the axeman's face.

Spearman went limp, slightly twitching and expelling more of his brain mater with each twitch.

With his axe lodged in the skull of his bewildered, but already dead friend, the idiot became distracted, and so threw the dead weight in my hands towards the incoming spells.

The look on axeman's face was priceless, his shrieks of pain were brief but wonderful as he was flash frozen and then broken apart simultaneously.

The utterly demoralised dagger-sisters were shaken. They were sweating. I could hear their puny hearts pumping furiously, I could smell their fear.

I sprinted at them, and then rolled. With a single manoeuvre I cut their legs off from below the knee, and cauterised the wounds with a flame spell at the same time.

The bones were visible, yet the tips were burnt and melded with their leather trousers and flesh.

The cut off parts of the legs decided to dance, for they danced, spraying blood and twitching.

But they were not ready to accept sweet, merciful death. They were trying to crawl away.

I kneeled next to one, and pinned her in place with the ebony sword through her stomach, being very careful not to sever anything important as the sword was trapped by the rocks. The other still tried to crawl, so two swift kicks smashed her backbone and saw her efforts be thwarted by the lack of her spine.

The look on her face was priceless. Her screams were far more priceless.

Then I turned to face the spearman whose hands were burnt to the flesh coated skeleton. He was in obvious shock, as he didn't scream. He didn't even seem to try and run.

And oh! How glorious was the smell of his cooked flesh!

The paralysed dagger sister screamed and screamed while the one pinned to the floor simply whimpered and cried.

I believed in sharing art with the world so I decide not to kill the paralysed dagger sister and let her live, entertaining the world with her sweet screams.

But the other dagger sister and the spearman?

I wasn't done with them yet.

* * *

10 Frostfall, 3E 427

Ilmeni Dren

* * *

My father had once told me that if you wanted to make up for a mistake, you did the job yourself and never let your employees suffer.

So that was what I had decided to do.

The idea wasn't popular. Me, who was annoyed by a dagger on my thigh heading out to the Azura's Coast to deal with murderous battlemage mercenaries.

I'd sold a necklace my mother left me to arrange for the money. I had to sell it because there was nothing else to sell, and no one would buy used clothes anyway. I had sold it for five hundred septims but I was sure that the jeweller guessed what the money was for and robbed me.

But there wasn't much I could do.

I had made a mistake and I deserved punishment for that.

Some of the older members of the Twin Lamps were furious about me heading to the field.

They said it was 'too dangerous' for me.

I think they thought I was incompetent. They'd always let me play leader, to handle the 'softer' jobs, to be their spokesperson.

It was time for me to prove I wasn't incompetent.

So, there I was. Fidgeting with my leather armour, trying to adjust to walking in the stiff boots and thinking over what went wrong with ' _Muthsera_ ' Marcus.

He never even told his name. I had to get it out of one of Orvas Dren's servants.

I thought I made a tactical mistake lying to him about the guards. Maybe if I told him that they were just mercenaries and not Telvaani affiliated guards he'd give me the gold. Maybe he was scared and didn't want to get involved in Telvaani politics, maybe if I had told him the truth I wouldn't have to sell off my mother's last gift.

I still remember my mother.

She was so warm and so...soft and she would be the only person who loved me and she used to sing so many songs to me.

I remember her voice.

She died, one day. I was too young to understand what was happening. She was a little sickly but that summer things got out of hand and one day she called me to her room.

Everyone was there, everyone was so... gloomy.

It was late at night. I was scared of sleeping alone, and father would be with mother and the servants were always so mean to me. I was trying to sleep, that night, when they called me.

They led me to her room.

My mother looked so thin, so frail, and still, she was smiling.

She gave me a necklace and told me to keep it with me always. And I told her that I was scared of sleeping alone and she smiled and told me to lay down beside her and she sang and she held me so tight.

I didn't understand then. Now I do.

She said she loved me, she said she'd always be there for me, but that was the last time I saw her.

When I woke up she was gone. Nobody told me where. They deflected my questions. When I saw my father I could not understand that he was drunk, but I do understand now. He said that she was dead.

I remember being stunned. Then I cried a lot, for the rest of that day and whenever I saw something related to my mother or when it was time to go to bed. I couldn't believe at first, couldn't comprehend that I'd never see my mother again.

Now I had sold off her last gift for the people who would probably scoff at me and laugh behind my back and stab me in the back if I trusted them.

That was my life. The life of the great young abolitionist Ilmeni Dren.

And I also really wanted to strangle Marcus of Cheydinhal to death.

I had walked towards Abebaal for days. Sitting to rest at times and eating whatever I had brought with me and then setting off again.

It was near midday when I smelled cooked flesh and death, heard bone chilling screams.

I wish I had turned away, gone back. But I didn't.

Something attracted me to the horrible screams, to the ever stronger smell of death. I crouched behind a rock.

And then I saw it.

One the rocky surface there was almost a river of blood.

Intestines, livers, brains, burnt body parts...it was a mess.

There were bodies that had been sliced into two, there were corpses missing parts.

There was a woman who was screaming. Her legs were cut off and cauterised below her knee, and it seemed like she couldn't move.

She was near another similar looking woman with her legs cut off and the wounds burnt, but she was pinned to the ground by an ebony sword. She was whimpering.

And then I saw Marcus of Cheydinhal, my uncle's killer.

He was drenched in blood. His eyes shone brighter than ever and his otherwise impassive face was crooked into a smile that radiated danger and pure evil.

He was kneeling beside a mer with burnt off hands, tearing off his armour.

When the armour was torn off, he rested his gauntleted left palm over the mer's trousers.

Then he said something in his ears. The shock passed from his face and he begged Marcus not to do it.

"No. No. Please, No!" That was all he could say.

Marcus shook his head and proceeded to rip the mer's genitals off.

I felt deadened inside. My heart was a battering ram against my ribs.

I felt sick, felt the bile rise to my throat. But when faced by death and brutality, one is often mesmerised, forced to look at it.

So was I.

The woman who was screaming stopped, and she started vomiting blood, and I tried to keep myself from vomiting.

I saw Marcus walk up to the other woman and grab her by the stumps of her legs, and then he proceeded to drag her, slowly.

Her whimpers turned into horrible, blood-curdling screams as she was split in half.

I had seen so much brutality in my life. In my field, you have to. Because we deal with those brutal slavers and we try and protect the people who are forced into bondage.

I've seen whipping scars; I've seen blinded slaves, with their eyes bloody mushrooms and eyelids gone.

But nothing I had seen until now could match the sheer brutality of what I had seen had unfolded here.

How could he do that? Was he not an abolitionist? Did he not fight for the benefit of others less stronger than he was?

Did those people not have families? Did they not do what they had to do to feed someone back home? Someone who wouldn't even be able to conduct a funeral because they could bear to see the condition that their loved ones' body was in?

I couldn't keep it in anymore, I vomited.

Loudly, humiliatingly, my stomach's contents were emptied into the rocky remnants of soil.

A sane person would have dragged herself up and ran, and not sit there mesmerised, as the seven foot tall butcher strode up to her with a sword and a predator-like, and at the same time insane, gaze with a bloody ebony sword.

I realised something all too well as Marcus of Cheydinhal grabbed me by my throat and effortlessly raised me four feet off the ground.

I was nothing but insane.

* * *

There's another chapter down.

One more and we move on to complicated lore stuff.

Take your time to read and review, and tell me if I've made a mistake somewhere or if something would be better than what it is now.

And sorry for taking too long but I had hit the dreaded Writer's block.

Again, take your time to read and review.


	7. Epiphany

**One who is born in the shade of the tower shall one day dance atop it.**

\- From 'The Big Book of Ehnoflex Proverbs' Platinum Anniversary edition

* * *

12th of Frostfall, 3E 427

"Epiphany"

Balmora, Vvardenfell district, Morrowind

Marcus of Cheydinhal

* * *

As I walked down the stairs from Balmora's silt strider service, I made a very obvious observation.

I was worked up.

Angry.

Blood was on my brain.

 _Click-Clack-Click-Clack-Click._

I hadn't killed her of course. A part of me would have, but she was far more valuable as a tool to get to the root of her oh-so-dear uncle's sex slave trade.

No. Not just that.

I had to keep her alive because she was going to get me targets in the Mainland itself. I had to attend one of her father's parties with her. So that they would know what would kill them when the time came. She had to be kept alive because the faction she pranced around as leader for had immense lists of people whose heads I would just _love_ to tear apart.

She had to be alive because...sard it. Why was I trying to rationalise not killing someone?

Was it because she was Dunmer?

Was it prejudice?

Wasn't that what I had been trying to remove from this place?

Letting her go, no, not just that, sarding escorting her to Tel Branora...it made me question certain things.

Just plain killing her would have been easier, less headache inducing.

But I knew what I was going to do.

I had asked her to meet me in Ebonheart.

She nodded, her knees were still a little shaky.

She was scared.

Her fear made me so crave tearing open her throat and drinking the spurt of metallic blood...

But somehow, I also didn't want to kill her, and it was not because she was useful.

I wanted to kill Caius Cosades I wanted to tear him apart

IWANTEDTOBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIMBURNHIMMAIMHIMTEARHIMCRUSHHIMBREAKHIM.

YOU ARE DEAD YOU SCUM INFESTED SARD!

I broke into a sprint.

He lived in the outskirts of Balmora, even outside the slums.

Good for me.

Clip-Clop-Clip-Clop-Clip-Clop

I was at his door in a rush of blinding speed.

Most of what I had learned in the legion was categorised into three categories.

For Show

For Fights

For When You Need To Kill Shite

The next tactic was in the last category.

I didn't break my sprint, instead jumped and kicked the door with all my might and both feet, also readying my sword to spear through that fucking sard. I had the never changing layout of his room memorised.

I expected that sard to die before he even knew what was going to happen.

But I had forgotten something.

Caius Cosades' impression of a skooma addict was extremely well done, but inside a thin topless man wearing old pants and a balding head of greying hair and a full beard hid a legendary spy as skilled as he was cunning.

In half a moment, something I never thought possible happened.

He sidestepped and somehow flipped me with an impossible kick to the spine, then started juggling two steel tantos seemingly conjured out of thin air while I fell face first into his bedside table, knee hitting the floor so hard that my femur cracked audibly, while my blade sawed through his bed and went about two feet in the floor. I didn't even try to move.

My only option here was guile.

Caius moved up to me, caught hold of my Mohawk and dragged my face up.

I looked him in the eyes. He seemed as if he had seen me somewhere, yet couldn't place the face. Then he recognised me. In his eyes i found the first thing I was looking for, I found shock.

"You? But you were..."

"Dead?"

With that, I forced both of my feet from where they were and kicked the ground out from under him.

His face slammed into the table. I wanted to crush it with my fist but when I punched broke through the weakened table found my left hand to be in a hole in the floor.

Caius stabbed me in the neck from where he was lying on the floor, laughing, and the blood dripping from his nose had rendered his grey beard red.

The blade was all the way through my neck, it had severed my carotid artery, wind pipe, and my spine. That meant that it was simultaneously very painful and would take some time to bypass and regain enough strength to pull it out, especially since my left hand was under the floor.

"Remarkable strength, for a dead...hold on, if you survived Corprus and burning..." he rolled away, and jumped up, transferring the tanto in his left hand to his right.

He had caught on, I was impressed, and that meant HE KNEW. HE KNEW WHAT HE HAD DONE, HE COULD HAVE SAVED THEM. HE COULD HAVE SAVED HER.

Or if he was too late, and remorseful, like he should have been, he could have gotten the dagger from that sard who made her art. He could have stabbed the blade into the earth, in a circle of an apple cut up into nine pieces, like the ones in the church of the nine do.

I have had my issues with the gods; I know that they are dead. But Reliyna, even though she had no issues with my belief, she was...she believed...

Reliyna was like a Coda flower in a Vvardenfell swamp. She was light in the dark. She was everything that symbolised positivity and love in a world that ran on Cynicism and hate.

Some people used to say that she was just as much a sociopath as me. They were wrong. Reliyna blanked out all the feelings when needed, to preserve her ability to shoot arrows. When they came back, she would feel heartbroken. She told me she started doing this when she was first on the road, a girl of sixteen.

She said she believed that the nine lived and they understood. It was her way to trying to stay stable and sane. She would have appreciated it if someone tried to honour her with such a trifling task.

I had recovered by that time, and I knew that since Caius hadn't escaped already, he presumably had a wish to die slowly and painfully.

I pulled my hand out, and then the blade. I stood up, faced him, and drew my knives.

Caius spoke.

"Foul gravewalker, do you expect astonishment on my face? It's too late for that. You made tactical errors. You charged in, you underestimated me. Wasn't it you who always said that guile is the only option, that charging blind is an error? Now let me tell you something. Something that will astonish you. Do you know your desti-"

"Destiny? That I am Nerevar Reborn? Far Star Marked? That my destiny is to kill the Sharmat? That my destiny is to be a political tool of the decrepit arsehole Uriel Septim VII alias Old Man With Two Brains Instead Of Ballocks?"

This time Caius was astonished.

I took slow, measured and menacing steps towards him.

A part of me rejoiced at discovering something I thought had been long lost. Cold rage.

"YOU SET ME UP! DOG SARDING SPY YOU TOOK ALL I HAD!"

This time my plan was going well, Caius was thinking about many different things. None of which included me.

So I pounced.

I kept on pounding him. Not with the Ebony, that would crush all his face. I pounded him with my right hand.

I kept at it till I heard him cackling. He cackled and he spit out blood.

Ah, so he liked it.

"Go ahead, kill me! Kill me because...Because I treated you like the expendable asset you were. It was a shame about the swashbuckler and the mage, and the bigg-ugh-Biggest shame was about the girl who led your group. I was glad that you died. You were always a sarding wreck, a-a madman. When they tried to use that to the Legion's advantage and... and attached you to the Shock Army you killed your Centurion because you didn't want to...ugh... raze a savage reachman rebel village like they ordered you to, because you didn't like him orphan...orphaning children. You were...you were always blind to tactics. They raze because it puts fear in the hearts of those that want to rise up against the Empire. So that those savages remember how badly the Empire crushed them and humiliated them and made examples out of them when they tried to rebel the last time. But...but you don't understand do you? The emperor saw your story and found that it checked out, you and another Dunmer in the jail."

What was he trying to give me? A confession? Did it make a difference? I had been amused for that long and so I decided not to smash him.

"I knew it was easier to work with a... Dunmer, a Velothi spawn heretic than a godless psychopath who hides behind the...behind the people he has lost and concepts he doesn't understand to...ugh... hide the fact that he en...enjoys hurting others just as much as those he kills. How many people have you killed so far because you wanted revenge? How many have you orphaned, my dea-akh-dear defender of the orphans? If my assumptions are correct then that entire village, and since your new description matches then the guards at Dren Estate too. What happened? Cat got your tongue?"

He kept on cackling. I wanted to kill him. I couldn't. It was as if something was stopping me.

Was it destiny? Or was it a god, who had decided that I was a target for some more cruelty?

The truth was neither of those. The truth was that he was correct. I had no right to claim that I was a good person, that I was justified. But in my defence, I must remind that I never said that. I was evil, I knew that, and i never said that I was a very good person.

"I went to that place you know, I got their...their lockets out of there. Yours too and your pipe, after all, you killed for me, your things at least deserved some prayers said in peace for your soul. I p-packed them into that small box there, wanted to...wanted to send them to Cyrodiil, to Weynon priory. There's an...an orange tree there. When the bells ring and the wind blows...it's beautiful. I-I never wanted them to die. I expected you to, and I expected them to abandon you in the end. I had never taken into acc-*cough*-account the phobia asso-associated with Corprus would kill them."

I no longer wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill myself. He wasn't right. I was not the reason. I should have killed him long ago.

"I used-akh- you to make his job a lot easier. He was not ex-expendable, you were. For him to be alive, I had to use you to get Corprus. I had to. It was for the em-empire. You are too indecisive, too fickle. You could have ruined months of planning."

While I was too stupefied to say anything at the time, looking back, he really had no idea that I really liked messing up age old planning.

"For him, it was deep...deep cover. Es-est-akh-establish the outlander as one of their own, orp-orphaned and kidnapped in a raid. Poor sard actually believes he lives among his people. He's among the Urshilaku, he's being trained as their champion."

I got off him, extracted my sword, picked up the box and left.

I wanted to leave Balmora as soon as possible. I wanted to drown in an endless pool of powdered mushrooms and Moon Sugar and Alcohol. I wanted my ears to start ringing because I wanted to sleep free from the whispers and the dreams.

I wanted this night to end, so that come morning, I would forget everything and could find more people to kill.

But since it would be morning when I would arrive anyway, I decided to head towards Ebonheart. Some boatman would surely be awake, even in this hour. Late night travel was an established service in Vvardenfell.

"Ebonheart. Funny, I think I need a heart of ebony too."

Was that, my voice? Was I speaking aloud? Wonders, they never cease to...ahh, sard it.

* * *

" _Stop squirming around!" I ordered, wrapping my naked, bandaged arms around her equally naked body. A gold chain with a locket embossed with her initial 'R' hung from my right hand, my face buried in her hair. It still smelled like wine. All of her body did, all the time._

 _It had cost me a good deal. Mine, Pontius' and Leonius' lockets were made of steel plated with brass, but Reliyna's was gold._

" _What? And let you put that on me? You know I hate the feel of a chain around my neck!" She wrapped the white sheet around us, suddenly feeling the early morning cold, which according to her, was the only uncomfortable feeling associated with opening the window after a few hours of passionate lovemaking._

" _For me, please, I'll be heartbroken!"_

" _Fine", she snuggled up to me, raising her head and nuzzled the side of my neck, "But you promise to make it up to me every day."_

" _Your wish is my command, Your Highness!"_

" _Shut up."_

As I put her stained gold locket on, and realised that she will never put it on again, I felt heartbroken.

The other three hung from my belt, next to the sheath for my blade.

It gave me some form of closure, after all. I realised that Cosades was right; charging blindly was a tactical error.

No more tactical errors, then.

"Serjo, we are here, Ebonheart docks!"

Ebonheart.

The heart of Imperial presence in Morrowind.

The Docks were large and spacious. Lots of boats and lots of birds.

Three guards with chests walked in a row, straight to the East Empire company warehouse.

A lad of about sixteen walked holding hands with another lad who looked about the same age.

With the looks they were giving each other, clear picture that they were in love.

Love. Why did it hurt when I thought about the word? Was it so far away from where I was?

Or was it perhaps I'd never even known what love was.

When I was sixteen years old, I had left my old gang of cutthroats behind by, cutting their throats, and had joined the legion.

Once I almost murdered my Hastillarius when he wanted me to show him what I could do.

They promptly attached me to the First Shock Legion, or the 'first madman army' as the Corniculariuses called it.

And that's just tugging at old wounds.

Right, I needed to let it go, I needed a fresh start at life. It looked like I had got my self-respect back. So what had I got to lose? Well, apart from the lists. What would I ever do without my lists.

I had a few thousand people to hunt. No words, no memories would change that.

I needed to reach Heaven by violence.

And when I became god, I decided, my first act would be to wipe myself out.

Because more than anything else in this world, I wanted to die.

And to die, the first step amongst thousands I would take would be towards the Argonian Mission, where the fashionable kids lounged and smoked hookahs from Hammerfell commenting on the next peaceful and docile attempt that would totally fail to wipe the face of slavery from Morrowind.

I had walked quite a distance, to the town square, by that point, I found myself standing under the enormous statue of the Dragon to shield my skull from the sun. My beard itched.

Changing the world never works when the ones who want to change it are afraid to go all the way. That's because change is never a static concept. Change is vigorous. You need to be as vigorous as change is, or you will fail, or change will change you. Change is never about half measures or 'we are better than this.' Change is about how far you are willing to go to accomplish your goal of bringing about Change.

That is why idealists with their 'hearts in the right place', and heads in the clouds, die horribly in a world made for cynics.

I took a left at the town square, I had to head further southwest. I walked till I reached the west wall, and from there made my way.

Ebonheart wasn't a bad looking town. If it had been Reliyna she would have used some words to describe the beauty of the facades of the houses and the little children playing here. She would have mentioned how clean the streets were etc. Streets mattered little to me, and so did facades.

That's why Nirn is called 'the Arena', and only cheaters prosper.

And with a few hundred more yards I was there, facing a building with armed Argonian guards in the front, and a girl with blonde hair peeking from a window upstairs.

A plaque in Imperial and one above that in Dunmeris confirmed it.

' The Argonian Mission, Vvardenfell branch, Ebonheart, Vvardenfell, Morrowind.'

The girl promptly ran away from the window and went downstairs.

"Halt. State your business." The guard's businesslike demeanour was quite expressive even from under his reptilian voice.

"Here for Muthsera Ilmeni Dren, and Master Im-Kilaya, please let them know that Master Marcus of Cheydinhal would like to see them as soon as possible."

Master Marcus of Cheydinhal. Hah. That's funny. I never thought I'd live to see the day when I would call myself Master. It was always Sard, or guttersnipe, or thief or that word...that hated word, 'whoreson'. The only respect I had ever got when it was Decanus Marcus instead of Munifex Marcus. And then I was a number for three years, number 57891-PP. PP stood for Periculosum Proditor. In legion terms, it meant that I was a dangerous traitor.

Sard the legion, and sard their sarding PP, and sard Cosades too. I was a dangerous traitor because I did what any man with a spine would do. I stopped my Centurion from raping and killing mothers and fathers in front of their children. I beheaded him for it, I broke my forearm in the process, and it crippled my left arm for the next seven years, but I did it because he said he would do it anyway.

Cosades knew nothing, understood nothing. For them raping and killing is just another tool to be used whenever necessary, to keep 'stability'. I say that it creates things like me. It creates violent and unstable abominations who know what they are, and do not want to change it.

It creates people who really like to set fire to the whole world and watch it burn.

My enjoyment of setting the world on fire and watching it burn was far greater than any words, any understanding and any morals.

There, I said it. I did whatever I did, because I liked doing it.

A reply from the guard who had come back woke me from my trance.

"Please, master, follow me. Master Im-Kilaya is waiting for you in the meeting room."

I followed him, and I noticed the other guard walking behind me. They were both about five feet away from me, far enough out of range for my sword but in range for their spears.

On my way in, I noticed too many armed guards for an embassy, and too much light for that time of the day. I realised that I was walking into a trap.

How idiotic of them to trap me in a room with them, where I could very easily mince them into mincemeat. But since I rather liked this new diplomacy thing, I went along with it.

The guard let me into a barely lit room with six Khajiit and Argonians armed to the teeth, and then the rearguard locked the room before he entered.

I took a wide stance, ready to hold the sword two handed to block if needed.

"Masters, I regret to inform you that I am not here to chop you into finely minced meat. Please, let us talk. Isn't that what people at an embassy do?"

The blow came from behind.

It was a mace, rounded, steel and the weight distribution was towards the hitting surface rather than equal, judging from the force of the impact. Made for concussive impact and incapacitation rather than killing.

My head felt like split firewood.

"Talk, that's a good one", spoke an Argonian with a somewhat less reptilian accent. "People talk, monsters don't."

Another blow. The removal of my long blade from its sheath.

"If you think we're letting you kill Ilmeni then you are wrong!"

Yet another blow. I noticed myself no longer kneeling but lying flat on my stomach, bleeding from the ears. I decided that I hated diplomacy.

"What...ahh...what speech! How do you talk of monsters when it is you who hit someone repeatedly with a mace on the back of the head? If I wanted to kill her I would have done it right then. I wanted to work with you two. But if you are so intent on dying let's dance you thick sard, I'll BURN YOU DOWN, I'LL BURN THE EMBASSY DOWN AND THEN I WILL BURN THE ENTIRE CITY DOWN!"

For the first time in the last four months, I had been exaggerating what I would do, Im-Kilaya didn't need to know that.

I opened my eyes, by now adjusted to the darkness

I leaped from where I lay and landed over some Khajiit that I incapacitated with a punch, the next one had a sword that I dodged and then he received a kick to the solar plexus and an elbow to the face. The third one I picked up and launched across the room, and she screamed like a kicked cat. The fourth one, the scaly Argonian guard was given a swift kick to the knee and another to the chest before he could perforate me with his spear.

PHRAT!

That had been my trousers, the underside of the thigh had burst open.

Then I noticed Im-Kilaya with his mace, which he swung, aiming for my head. Sidestep, trip and disarm.

As he went down I broke the mace on the last Argonian's sword arm. He had been hit with just the rod instead of the steel ball, so he would just have a few weeks of pain and disability.

It seemed strange to me not to kill them and skin them and make fur coats and scale armour out of them, but I reminded myself that I wanted to work with them, a prospect which would be difficult were they dead.

And by this time, Ilmeni Dren herself graced us with her presence, holding a torch that was quite uncomfortable for my eyes.

She was a little surprised. She had expected me to kill them outright. She was a little relieved however, to hear their groans instead of screams.

So dull! Screaming is a much better sound from every respect!

But, self-respect and everything.

Once the fashionable kids who I would have killed on any other day, along of the entire city, settled down, we had a much needed refreshment and beverage interval before what I presumed would be the second round of the gladiatorial arts, in which round I would gleefully torture them to death, since I had already proved that I had shown my mercy once.

But it never broke out; instead we had a discussion, like people do at embassies.

"So, you killed mercenaries who had never attacked you in your life, while you spared those that attacked you?"It was Ilmeni Dren, between helping herself to the Ash-Yam preparation, which, quite surprisingly, was delicious. Her tone was quite sardonic. Girl had her courage back, it seemed.

"I only kill those who deserve it." I could be just as grim.

"Kill? Kill? You brutalised them! You made sure that their funerals would never be held because there was not enough evidence to sort their parts out! You culturally blind idiot! Dunmer consider dismemberment abhorrent, since it means that the Ancestor spirits will never be able to leave the bodies! You simply chopped them up like, like a butcher of some kind!"

She slammed the dish down on the table. Im-kilaya and his merry band of killers who never knew one end of the sword from another groaned in unison, but kept their eyes fixed on my face, because they were amazed at how I had stopped bleeding from the ears, a very prominent sign of eardrum rupture.

I felt anger.

I moved my face down to her level, quite near her face.

"Sard the Dunmer and their funeral rituals! What the sard do you think they would have done to the slaves you wanted money to protect? Would they have emancipated them, made passionate love with them and let them on their merry ways? No! They would have done worse things to the slaves than I did to them! Do you think the Telvanni have any sort of mercy? Do you think mercenaries, and yes I know about that, mercenaries who accept contracts to put down slave rebellions in mines have mercy? Do you think the Dunmer who burn a girl down for protecting the one she loved have any mercy?"

 _Calm down, don't mix the events, and don't become prejudiced._

"No? I thought so. Your silence answers my questions!"

She was silent. She looked down at the floor, Im-Kilaya and his friends still stared at my face like monkeys out of a circus troupe from Alinor.

"I came here to offer you something. I came here, to tell you that apart from regular slaves, your Uncle dearest made a lot of gold trading bed slaves to the mainland. His funeral's in a week, in Ebonheart. I need you to go with me, let me know who his partners are, and I promise you, that if you give me his partners I will track down those bed slaves and help them escape and provide them with money enough for a passage home, wherever it might be, and a fresh start, so that they are not doomed."

She stared at me.

"So, deal?"

She looked in the eyes. In her eyes I saw trepidation, revulsion and somehow, acceptance and assent.

"Deal."

* * *

Thanks to Vanillathunder215, Countess z and JM38LACK for chats and ideas. Leitis is missing.

Words:

Centurion: The leader of 100 men, comparable to a Captain of our times

Decanus: The first rank available to a soldier after Munifex, comparable to a modern Sargeant

Munifex: The soldiers of the legions, lowest rank, comparable to a modern Private

Cornicularius: Legion Officer

This chapter was an attempt at something new. I felt Marcus was becoming stagnant in his development. Personally, I'm rather proud of what I did with it.

Please Read and leave me a review. I cannot express how wonderful a review feels like.


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